Tale Of The Tape: The VP And His Challenger

Who Is He?

Joe Biden: Biden, whose own presidential aspirations sputtered in 1988 and again in 2008, brought to the Democratic ticket foreign policy chops and an ability to relate to working-class voters. In his 36 years representing Delaware in the U.S. Senate, he became known as more pragmatist than ideologue. He has also made a somewhat dubious name for himself because of his volubility and not infrequent verbal stumbles. But he has parlayed those potential liabilities into an effective, if occasionally unpredictable, campaign trail presence.

Paul Ryan: Ryan, the Wisconsin native picked by GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney as his running mate, brings conservative star power to the ticket. One of the self-named "Young Guns" of the U.S. House, Ryan is best known for congressional budgets he has authored. His proposals would overhaul the tax code, increase defense spending, defund much of President Obama's health care legislation and remake Medicare into a voucherlike program. His prominence in the size-of-government debate has reassured conservatives skeptical of Romney's bona fides and also given Democrats an opportunity to portray the ticket as unfriendly to Americans of modest or little means.

Health Care: Advocate for Obama's health care overhaul, which he once advised the president to delay given harsh economic conditions.

Ryan:

Health Care: Opposes Obamacare; wrote budget plan that secures savings by converting Medicare from a guaranteed benefits to a voucher plan, and Medicaid to a state block grant program tied to inflation.

Ryan: Bachelor's degrees in political science and economics, Miami University of Ohio, 1992.

Religion

Biden: Roman Catholic

Ryan: Roman Catholic

Wealth

Biden: Biden's reported personal net worth, according to financial disclosures required of members of the executive branch, ranges from negative $1.2 million to positive $190,993. He has assets ranging from $233,000 to $776,000, but his liabilities include a mortgage of between $500,000 and $1 million, which includes his principal residence and a rental property, and several loans or lines of credit.

Ryan: Ryan's personal worth ranges from $2 million to $7.7 million, largely as a result of an inheritance his wife recently received after her mother died. In June, Ryan amended his 2011 personal financial disclosure to reflect his wife's one-third interest in her late mother's trust. Her share in the blind trust is valued between $1 million and $5 million, according to the amendment submitted by Ryan. His only liability is a mortgage of between $250,000 and $500,000.

Health

Biden: Life-threatening brain aneurysm that required surgery in 1988, after which he suffered a pulmonary embolism. He was given last rites by a priest. A second aneurysm was repaired that year; he has reportedly had no recurrences.

Ryan: Touts his fitness and low body fat as the result of a strenuous daily workout that combines strength and cardio training.

Personal Setback

Biden: His wife and 1-year-old daughter were killed and both sons injured in a 1972 car crash shortly after his first election to the U.S. Senate. They were Christmas tree shopping; Biden was not in the car. Democratic leaders persuaded him not to resign his seat to care for his family. He was sworn in at his sons' hospital bedside. The devastating loss, he wrote in his book, Promises to Keep, filled him with rage and made him question his faith. "All my life, I'd been taught about our benevolent God. ... Well, I didn't want to hear anything about a merciful God. ... I felt God had played a horrible trick on me, and I was angry."

Ryan: When he was 16, Ryan, the youngest of four children, found his 55-year-old father dead in bed of a heart attack. He has pointed to the early death of his father, a lawyer, as key to the formation of his political and personal tenets. His father's Social Security survivor benefits helped put him through college.

Biden: His run for the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination was destroyed by allegations of plagiarism when operatives for opponent Michael Dukakis sent media an attack video showing that Biden appropriated without credit parts of a stump speech from British Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock.

Ryan: The failure of his ongoing efforts to privatize Social Security, starting in 2005 when he enlisted President George W. Bush to advocate for the change. Republicans lost big in midterm elections the following year.

Gaffes

Biden: Difficult to pick just a few, from a man who has inspired headlines like this, from The Daily Beast: "The Never-Ending List of Vice President Joe Biden's Verbal Gaffes."

-- "How can they can justify raising taxes on the middle class that's been buried the last four years, how in Lord's name can they justify raising their taxes with these tax cuts?" — Oct. 2, 2012, North Carolina campaign speech

-- This is a big *bleeping* deal. --to President Obama, at 2009 signing of health care legislation, caught on a hot microphone. — I mean, you got the first sorta mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that's a storybook, man. --interview with New York Observer during 2007 Democratic primary season.

Ryan:

"I don't have the — it would take me too long to go through all of the math." - Sept. 30, 2012, Fox News, when pressed to explain the Romney/Ryan budget plan.

Fun Facts

Biden:

-- His sister, Valerie Biden Owens, who ran his first campaign for County Council, has been with him on every campaign since — including his first Senate race when his upset victory made him, at 29, the fifth-youngest person ever elected to the chamber. — Overcame a stutter as a child by memorizing poetry and practicing in front of a mirror. — Amtrak renamed its station in Wilmington, Del., the "Joseph R. Biden Jr. Railroad Station" to honor the man who during his 36 years in the Senate commuted by train almost daily from his Delaware home to work in Washington. Biden also helped secure stimulus funding to refurbish the station.

Ryan:

-- Classmates voted him both prom king and biggest "brown-noser" his senior year in high school. — In college, he had a job driving Oscar Mayer's promotional hot dog-shaped Wienermobile. — His wife's uncle is former senator and Oklahoma Gov. David Boren, a Democrat; her first cousin is the former governor's son, Rep. David Boren, also an Oklahoma Democrat. — He sleeps in his congressional office while in Washington. — He has professed a fondness for "noodling" — catching catfish with his bare hands.